What it is: The author of Eleven Days presents another haunting and surprisingly subtle take on the traditional thriller, as much about family and memory as it is about subterfuge.

What happens: When Anna's banker father dies in a skiing accident just before her wedding, she decides to go through with the ceremony. While in France on her honeymoon, she meets a stranger who reveals her father's true employer -- the CIA -- calling into question everything she knows about her father, including the "accident" that killed him.

What it's about: Taking a contract to abduct the mistress of a Syrian dictator to obtain any information she may possess, Court Gentry learns that the woman has given birth to the dictator's only son and that in order to secure her cooperation, he must retrieve the child safely out of Syria.

The premise: Joe Lynch leads an unremarkable life as a happily married London teacher. One afternoon he spots his wife Mel in traffic, and thinking it might be nice to surprise her, he decides to follow her car.

The problem: It turns out that Mel was meeting their neighbor Ben at a hotel, and when a later confrontation ends with violence, Ben's subsequent disappearance casts suspicion on Joe. Meanwhile, an affair isn't the only secret Mel has been keeping from her husband.

What it's about: Besides fast cars and beautiful women? There's also a Soviet plot to sabotage the Grand Prix, which 007 learns is only the beginning of an international conspiracy to undermine Western progress in the Space Race.

Featuring: Celebrated Jewish writer Alex Meier, who returns to his native Berlin in 1948 when the rise of McCarthyism makes him a pariah in the U.S.

What happens: The CIA offers him a chance to come back to America if he agrees to spy on the Soviets, but the stakes skyrocket when his assignment leads him right to the woman he loved and left behind during the war.

What it's about: After being pressed back into service for MI6, black marketeer Joe Wilderness must negotiate a tense prisoner exchange in Berlin, right as construction on the Wall begins. Can Joe balance his contacts on both sides of the divided city while also navigating the many temptations of his seedy past?

Series alert: This is the second Joe Wilderness novel, following up 2014's Then We Take Berlin.

What happens: Former intelligence agent Peter Guillam is called out of retirement when the current government in London begins probing the activities of British operatives during the Cold War. This prompts Guillam to do some personal reflection on his past actions and missions, making for a bleak but also moving take on the typical spy thriller.

Series alert: Le Carré fans may recognize the name Peter Guillam -- yes, this really is the long-awaited next entry in the George Smiley series of novels, the first since 1991.

What it's about: CIA agent George Mueller is tasked with finding a mole in the highest levels of the agency, but in the paranoid McCarthy era, the closer he gets to his target the more suspicious his colleagues grow of him. Can Mueller find the double agent in time to clear his own name?

Inspired by: The complicated life and mysterious death of real-life spy James Speyer Kronthal, a protégé of long-serving CIA director Allen Dulles.